crescendo
by artists
Summary: "Um, question. I really do wanna go trick or treating, but what if the ass kickers are already here?" —packfluff


notes: i don't even know what specific time or whatever this happens (s3 ish) just bear with me. allison exists forever, isaac doesn't leave, halloween turns everybody into a huge softie and lydia uses 'sort of' & 'kind of' a lot.

it's really super cheesy and sickeningly sweet but halloweennn and im nostalgic about tw so i had to write this and i hope you enjoy and literally anything is appreciated; im shameless.

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Trick or treating in Beacon Hills is probably the dumbest idea the pack has come up with yet and Lydia is including all the eight thousand times they almost died.

(So, as always, she complains to Allison).

"What do you even want me to dress up as—_myself_?"

"You don't even look different, Lydia. Not like Scott and the others. And none of you guys are monsters. Well, except you right now, you're acting like one."

"Says the girl who likes shooting people with arrows."

"I don't—" The frustration in Allison's voice is palpable and Lydia almost smiles, then catches herself, and then reprimands herself because you can't hear smiles over the phone. "You know what? Don't dress up. If anyone asks, we'll say you're Regina George but we haven't been trick or treating in a while and poor Isaac has just never gone and believe it or not, nothing's trying to kill us right now so _please_. Come."

Lydia waits another few seconds, just for Allison, breathes out a long drawling sigh, and finally responds. "Fine. But if you accidentally mistake an actual thing for a guy in a costume and get us all killed, my ghost will make sure to drive you nuts for eternity."

"You do that already, sweetheart."

Lydia scowls and makes to hang up, but somehow still catches the last few notes of her best friend's extremely annoying laugh.

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It's two days from Halloween, the five of them are watching movies in Scott's house, and Lydia tries persuading them into hosting a party instead.

"Parties are so much more fun!"

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but parties never work out for us." Scott says in a way that's probably supposed to be all fun and teasing, but Lydia choses to rather be extremely offended and slaps him across the head; he glares and she smirks.

"Correct me if _I'm_ wrong," She begins, daring anyone to contradict the girl with a 5.0 plus; nobody does. "But does anything ever work out for us? Ever?"

Stiles shrugs. "Not really," Lydia beams at her new ally and official new best friend, and her face falls drastically when he continues. "But that's exactly why we should totally do this. I mean something always tries to kick our ass so before another ass kicker pops up here and kicks our ass, we should do some ass kicking ourselves. Which means we should have fun on Halloween for a change."

Allison stares.

Isaac, who has been remarkably quite in their mini debate session, raises his hand. "Um, question. I really do wanna go trick or treating, but what if the ass kickers are already here?"

"Exactly—"

"Shush, Lydia—"

"You shush, Allison—"

Stiles interrupts them both. "Then my buddy right here, Scotty, true alpha extraordinaire, will kick their asses right back."

As if on cue, Scott nods and pulls his convincing leader façade. "We've been through some serious shit so far. We deserve this."

Isaac concedes with a grin, probably because the boy adores Scott way too much, and apparently even Derek thinks it's a great idea, and because McCall Pack is a democracy, Halloween night becomes a thing.

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Allison is still stuck on her 'wonderful' idea to go as a Mean Girls-esque duo.

Lydia agrees, partly because all the running away from creatures hungry for murder has given her some pretty killer legs, no pun intended, and she doesn't see the harm in totally rocking a pink miniskirt, and partly because it doesn't look like she's dressing up too much.

(And also because she loves her best friend, kind of a lot).

The boys, being Scott, Stiles, Isaac, dress up as vampires, paled up with Melissa's make up and wearing lots of leather, all because it's supposed to be real 'funny'. And Lydia and Allison do laugh, but it's more because of how ridiculous they look versus how they have the 'natural Cullen charm'.

Ridiculously adorable, though, Lydia decides when she glances over at Stiles and smiles, rather unwillingly.

Allison, kudos to her, wrinkles her nose. "We should have had matching costumes." This is directed to Scott, with half a sigh and half a laugh, but the guy just shrugs, grinning, too proud of his vampire trio.

"Now let's get some candy!" He enthuses, and everybody responds with so much joy it's as if they're all five years old again, and it's probably because smiles are contagious but Lydia grins for a while before she catches herself.

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If the prospect of trick or treating hadn't been exciting enough, getting the candy is all in all a rather mind-blowing experience.

"Trick or treat!" Isaac has the honor of declaring, his very first time, and whether the bright puppy dog eyes are on purpose or not, Lydia understands why the cute old lady gives them such a huge haul of Jolly ranchers.

It's kind of fun, and even though Lydia rolls her eyes a lot, she's happy. Kind of.

At some point, two boys run up to them, tug on Scott's sleeve, mumbling something like "can we have a picture with you please" and Lydia's about to give them a heartfelt thank you when the taller kid hands her a camera.

"Can you take the picture?"

If he hadn't been so adorable, he'd have been dead. "Sure!"

Neither of them can manage to pull a proper Blue Steel, that's for sure.

By the end, their bags are full to brim, bulging with everything from gummy worms to Twix bars to tiny reese cups and even homemade, wrapped up, heart melting, cookies, and somewhere down their trek across Beacon Hills, Lydia decides she'll eat it all.

Soon, they'll be under death threat again, and Lydia can burn off all those calories parkour-ing away from 'ass kickers'.

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Derek has a polaroid camera.

He also welcomes them with tiny store bought chocolate wolves, because apparently Halloween really brings out the humor in everybody.

"I still don't understand why you consented to this." Lydia tells him, even though she's sort of had the time of her life. "You're supposed to be the responsible adult here, remember? And yet you thought it was a good idea for supernatural creatures to dress up as supernatural creatures and go asking for candy in a town full of supernatural creatures?"

"You're starting to sound like Stiles." Is his first remark and she doubts that's supposed to be offensive, sort of blushes, and then huffs because ew, _feelings_. "And well, I was sort of hoping you'd accidentally run into a few real vampires and they'd kill you but don't tell the others."

"Aw, thanks Derek!" Scott calls from somewhere behind and even he's starting to sound like Stiles, the sarcasm ringing so clear in his voice. Excess of Stiles Stilinski does strange things to people.

"Is there such a thing as real vampires?" Allison enquires curiously and Derek just shrugs in a very 'yeah, probably' way.

"Bet you they'll be our next ass kickers." Stiles says and everybody laughs.

Isaac looks happier than she's ever seen, Allison is literally dancing, Derek is joking with Stiles and Scott and Lydia just stands there in her miniskirt and feels ridiculous warmth rush through her.

Melissa has left wolf cupcakes in the fridge for them and they're so good for cupcakes that Lydia didn't even know existed, she feels pretty jealous of Scott and Isaac who get her food whenever they ask.

They take loads of polaroids. The rules are simple; everybody has to have a picture with everybody and they take six versions of three different group shots so they all can keep a copy.

After she's taken numerous selfies of numerous faces with Stiles, something she did enjoy immensely, she notices Allison, Scott, and Isaac are missing in action.

Stiles winks at Derek. "They're probably having a threesome in your room."

"Well, thank God I change my sheets often."

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Turns out they'd actually started some sort of food fight, the little prudes they were.

If eating candy was fun, throwing candy was even more fun, because a full fledged war breaks out.

Derek probably drugged Melissa's cupcakes because the amount of chocolate in Lydia's hair is enough to make L'oreal experts cry but she doesn't really care _that_ much—just about enough to make Stiles pay for what he did.

It takes just a few quick throws, a "take that, you little shit" and the boy is on his knees and begging for mercy.

Things go really out of control; Stiles is still shaken from trying to cross Lydia Martin, Scott and Isaac have no shame and eat food off themselves, Derek and Allison are having some kind of mega showdown in the corner, and Lydia hurls Hershey Kisses at everybody, destroying everything in her path and channeling her inner Khaleesi.

"Lydia?" Her best friend's voice sounds from amidst the battlefield, followed by a thud and a loud swear. "Is there anything you're not good at?"

"Yes, losing!"

(Allison and Lydia win. It's not really a surprise).

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When Lydia's finally back home and showered, she pulls out the pictures from last night she'd so carefully saved and slips them into a shoe box.

She's not much of an artsy scrapbook person but the box, frayed around the edges and pretty old, is literally all that Lydia holds precious, a few pictures with her grandmother, one with Jackson, another with Allison, and now with everybody else she loves.

(Kind of).

(A lot).

Sooner or later, probably sooner, something or another will probably fuck them up really, really bad.

Maybe then she can look at the polaroids and remember the one time McCall pack had an absolutely wonderful idea.


End file.
